


The only thing saltier than this is Griffin

by kusege



Category: The Glass Scientists (Webcomic), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Allergies, Bad first impression, Based on a True Story, Gen, High School, I wrote this so fast what is my life, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, Snow and Ice, can be any j&h but i wrote it with tgs in mind, google dot com how to get help for your chronic procrastination, this is a real fic i swear, this is just stupid, this is literally just them meeting there’s no plot, what is a plot can you eat it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 05:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kusege/pseuds/kusege
Summary: salty boyyyyys(this isnt a shitpost i promise please read)





	The only thing saltier than this is Griffin

**Author's Note:**

> Life: you have 2 essays due tomorrow  
> Me: I wanna write  
> Life: Well, I guess you can update the reincarnation au...  
> Me: I wanna write about salt.  
> Life: ... I’m sorry?  
> Me: SALT
> 
> i hate myself

Edward hated his life.

In general, of course, not just now. Why wouldn’t he hate his life? It was awful. No friends, school was shit, his parents didn’t care about him, all the normal teenage angst stuff.

He especially hated it now, though, in the winter. Not because of the cold or the snow or the sudden danger of freezing to death when he took walks at night (which he did often.)

He hated it because of salt.

Seriously, the salt people put on the roads to melt away the ice. It was weird and red and he was allergic to it. He had been his whole life, which he’d found out when he was three and he slipped and fell facedown in the street. He’d been okay, just a little cut or two (that he’d cried about because he was a little bitch.) The next day, though, his skin was covered in painful hives everywhere the salt had touched.

He had to be careful at this time of year, since even getting it on his shoes could lead to it spreading to his hands or his ankles. The reaction took like 3 days to go away and it always hurt a lot.

So, he played parkour on the way to school, giving curbs, which always seemed to collect the salt, a wide berth and jumping around salt deposits that had melted through their assigned bit of snow and hadn’t dissolved in the process. It usually wasn’t too much of a struggle, just annoying. The only real problem area was the parking lot of the school.

The problem with the parking lot was that so many cars drove through there that they dragged the salt along with them. Nearly the entire place had some amount of salt on it, and the clear areas were more often than not taken up by cars. He only had to cross about half of it before he could slip onto the sidewalk, but that half was dangerous.

Today was no exception, jumping from clear patch to clear-ish patch, running in front of cars, and generally being a nuisance to the drivers. Someone more kind-hearted might have felt bad about it, but Edward actually enjoyed making people frustrated. It was fun, knowing that he was ruining their days, in just a little way. Obviously, no one was going to report him, and there was no cost to himself, so it was honestly a brilliant way to cause mayhem.

He was almost to the sidewalk, which meant he was by the extremely red-salt-saturated curb, but also nearly to safety. (The sidewalks were melted with green salt, which he wasn’t allergic to. He didn’t know why, some reason his doctor had told him and he had promptly forgotten.)

He just had to make one more jump to that rare spot, the only clear area within sidewalk-jumping distance, and he’d be safe. It had never been a problem before, and it wouldn’t be one now.

Edward made the jump to the clear patch, almost losing his balance on the landing (the clear spots unfortunately tended to be icy.) His years of jumping experience gave him stability, though, and he stayed on his feet.

Suddenly, a car horn sounded, just to his right. He turned to look, expecting to see a pissed-off driver he’d just jumped in front of, but instead he saw someone, maybe 30 feet away from him, careening forward and _fuck he wasn’t going to be able to stop in time, was he?_

Edward, panicked, leaped to the sidewalk without looking to ensure the space was clear. He hoped he would land on his feet.

Instead, he careened into someone, knocking their body to the sidewalk. He quickly rolled off the person and stood up, brushing himself off. “Are you okay?” he asked quickly. He didn’t really care one way or the other, but he didn’t need another detention for hurting someone.

“Dammit,” the person said as they rolled to their back (he’d knocked them on their face? Ouch.) “Dammit!” they said, louder, quickly brushing their face with their hoodie sleeves. They stood up suddenly and quickly enough that Edward was startled, even with his quick reflexes. They turned to him. “I need to go to the nurse now,” they sighed.

Edward quickly looked them up and down. They were bleeding from that? “I didn’t realize I hit you that hard,” he said. He didn’t see any blood, though.

“No, it’s not the impact, it’s the salt,” they explained, waving their hands. “I’m allergic to it. Just the green kind, though.”

Edward looked at them in surprise. “Really? I’m allergic to just the red kind.” They looked at him, confused.

“Magnesium.”

“Huh?”

“Magnesium! It’s... what makes salt red,” they said, awkwardly looking away.

“Damn bitch, you know that off the top of your head?” Edward asked, starting to walk toward the school. He didn’t need to be late to class again either.

“I’m in AP Chem,” they said, following him and awkwardly rubbing their neck as they did. They then started, as if they’d realized something. “Oh! Shit, uh, my name’s Henry. Just... in case you were wondering, I guess.”

Henry, huh? “My name’s Edward, I guess. If you wanted to know.”

Henry hummed, as if to say he didn’t particularly care, but he did acknowledge it had been said. “Well, I have to go before my face puffs up,” he said. “Quick question, though.”

“Shoot.”

“Why did you jump into me?” Henry asked, looking at him from the corners of his eyes.

Oh. “Well, uh, I have to run through the parking lot to get to the school, right? Because walking in the grass makes me fall over and I’m wet and uncomfortable all day.” Edward glanced at him. Henry looked to be following along. “But they use the red salt on the roads and in the parking lot, so I have to be really careful not to touch it, so I kinda have to jump around to different clear spots. And this time a car almost ran into me so I had to jump fast and I didn’t have time to look and... yeah you were in the way,” he finished lamely.

Henry nodded. They had reached the entrance to the school. “Well, time to go, I guess,” he said awkwardly.

“Guess so,” Edward said. “Good luck with the nurse.”

“Thanks,” Henry replied, before going into the door on the left and heading straight for the office. Edward watched him go, thinking for a moment about the boy who apparently had the opposite problem from him. Then the warning bell rang, and he had to leave his thoughts behind and rush to his first class. Seriously, whose idea was it to put all the History classrooms as far away from the entrance as possible? And then he had math on the other side of the building next... 

He really hated his life.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually have no idea if magnesium makes salt red but that’s what my therapist said one time so...
> 
> Based off a real-life person I know who is also allergic to only the red melty salt. So it’s realistic! Kinda. (Hi Aunuli if you somehow find this)
> 
> please leave kudos and comments my motivation is being trampled to death


End file.
